by Rosie Somers
“Clearly,” I answer.
“Let’s go to another room. We should talk.” He motions toward the front of the apartment, and after a moment, I head for the living room. His footsteps follow not far behind.
“Mari?” My mother steps out of her room, fresh from the shower, with her hair wrapped in a bath towel. “I thought you left for school. Is everything all right?”
“I forgot my homework. But when I came back in, Uncle Samuel was going through my stuff.”
Her eyes widen in shock. Then she pins my uncle with a look of pure fury. “What were you doing? Looking for money? You won’t find any alcohol in there.”
“I wasn’t looking for alcohol.” He sounds insulted, and I don’t know why, but it makes me feel a little sorry for him. Until he follows it up with, “Can we go sit and talk? There’s something you need to know.”
My mother looks like she wants to argue, but she ends up motioning for us to follow her to the living room. I wait for my uncle to pass me before heading that way myself, and I have to hold my breath against the stench of booze hanging around him like a cloud. He obviously wasn’t looking in my room for alcohol, because he’s already been drinking. Probably has a secret stash of it hidden in the guest room.
I watch him carefully as he heads for the couch and settles himself on the cushions. He carries himself well for a man who’s drunk at seven a.m. Or maybe this is his normal.
I claim the same chair I sat in the night Uncle Samuel arrived here, and my mother sits in the other one. If it weren’t for the bright sunlight streaming through the windows, I’d be experiencing some serious déjà vu.
“All right, Sam. What’s going on?” My mother sounds less accusing than before. Now, she just sounds worried.
He doesn’t answer right away, then finally says, “You know how Petrov Rosinsky chased you both out of France?”
I nod. My mother doesn’t move.
Uncle Samuel continues. “Well, it wasn’t because he found out you were moving in on the duchy jewels. Or that you actually managed to get them. Though that did piss him off a little.” Yep. He’s definitely drunk.
“Go on,” my mother encourages.
Uncle Samuel looks around the room as if he’s scanning for interlopers, then leans forward and whispers, “He’s after the book.”
Okay, maybe Uncle Samuel is drunk and crazy. Why would Petrov send killers after us for some book?
“What book, Sam?” My mother’s voice is low and serious, like she’s scolding him for missing curfew or something.
“The diary!” he says like we’re being intentionally thick-skulled.
And then it hits me. “My journal?”
“Yes! The one Gabriel gave you before he…” Uncle Samuel seems to come to his senses before he mentions my father’s death. He looks wide-eyed to my mother, as if for direction, then guiltily down at the carpet under his feet. “Rosinsky wants the diary.”
“Why does he want Marisol’s diary?” My mother’s overly calm reaction is starting to put me on edge. She’s always taking things in stride; that’s no surprise, but there’s something deadly in her calm this morning.
“I don’t know.” Uncle Samuel sits back among the couch cushions, looking defeated. “I just know that’s what he’s after.”
We sit there like that, none of us speaking, for so long I begin to wonder if we’ll ever speak again. I mentally run through my journal entries. The book is thick, probably several hundred pages, and even though I’ve had it for more than nine years, only about half of those pages are filled. I really only write in it when I’m missing my father or big changes have happened in my life. And of course, when we pull off a heist. Every job we’ve ever successfully completed is in that book, like the duchy exhibit. Could that be why he wants it—to have written record of our criminal exploits?
It was stupid of me to write them down. Part of me realized that when I was doing it. Now, I fully recognize the error of my ways.
A soft snore interrupts my thoughts, pulling my attention away from the journal tucked under my window seat right now. Uncle Samuel is passed out. His head is tilted against the back of the couch, and his arms are spread wide on each side. His mouth hangs open, and even as I watch him, another snoring inhale rattles at the back of his throat, this time louder than the first.
My mother rises gracefully and crosses over to the couch. She grabs the throw from the back and lays it gently over my uncle. “You should head to school, mija. We’ll figure this all out later, sí?”
“School?” Yeah, that is so not happening now. “I can’t. Not now, not today.” Maybe not ever.
My mother’s expression is a mask of pity and sadness, but she doesn’t argue with me or try to comfort me. I head to my room wordlessly. I can’t digest this new turn of events. And I don’t think I’ll be able to for some time. I pull my phone from my pocket and send a quick message to Will letting him know I’m not going to be there today. I don’t want him to stand around waiting for me—or worse, show up at my door. My phone chimes his response almost immediately, but I don’t bother reading it. As soon as I enter my room, I drop the phone on my dresser and head for my window seat and my journal hidden under the cushion. I go to it as if pulled by gravity, pick it up, turn it over and over in my hands. Then I open it, and I sit. And I write.
February 19th,
I’m so afraid of dying like my father, I can’t even talk about it out loud. No one really knows what happened to him for sure, and ever since he disappeared on a heist when I was seven, I’ve had this secret fear that I’ll disappear like he did. I used to cry myself to sleep at night because I missed him tucking me in, reading me stories, checking under my bed for monsters. But worse than missing him, I used to wake in the middle of the night sweaty from nightmares and shaking from terror that someone was coming for me, too, to make me disappear like my dad.
My mom won’t talk about it, but Uncle Samuel had too much to drink one Christmas—no surprise there—and let some of the details slip. The way he tells it, Petrov hired Mom and Dad for a job, and it was the last job my mom ever agreed to do for someone else.
Back in those days, Mom and Dad both ran point together. But with this job, Petrov insisted Dad work with his men, and Mom was forced to stay back at the control—and by control, I mean the van—listening through her earpiece. She was supposed to be the lookout and the organizer, telling them if they were in danger and plotting alternate escape routes if necessary. But something went wrong. Samuel wouldn’t say what, but I got the impression from his drunken ramblings that the whole thing had been a setup, a double-cross orchestrated by Petrov to eliminate the competition: my mom and dad.
And it almost worked.
Men attacked my mom while she waited in the van, but she fought them off—that’s part of the reason she insisted I have martial arts training afterward, in case something like that ever happened to me. She wanted me to be able to defend myself, and now I can. But the whole time she was fighting the men attacking her, she could hear my father being attacked by the men he was supposed to be working with.
She tried to get to him, but by the time she got to where he was, everyone was gone. The only evidence that they’d ever been there was a puddle of blood—so much blood no one could have survived, according to Samuel—and my father’s earpiece on the ground next to it.
I remember my mom coming home in a panic; she couldn’t get rid of the babysitter fast enough, and even though I was in my pajamas and all ready for bed, she demanded that I pack anything I absolutely needed into a suitcase as quickly as I could. I didn’t understand then what was happening. If I had, I would have packed only the things my father had given me and nothing else. Now, the only thing I have left of him is the flashlight he would let me keep by my bed at night to chase the monsters away. I still keep it by my bed, right next to this journal, the one Petrov is after, even though now I understand that the only monsters in this world are human.
Chapter Sixtee
n
February 23rd,
So much for a normal life. I can’t even bring myself to attend school anymore. It’s been five days since Uncle Samuel dropped the bomb about Petrov wanting my journal, and I’ve spent almost every minute of that hiding in my room. Well, not literally hiding, but definitely avoiding the real world. And why not? Now I know that no matter how far we run, no matter how well I blend in, Petrov’s going to keep looking for me. Because I’m not on his radar for working in his territory. I have something he wants. For the last five days, I’ve been going back and forth about what I should, or even can do. Do I give him the book and hope that ends his preoccupation with my family? Or do I hold on to the book and keep hiding, hoping he never finds me? Logically speaking, I should destroy the book. Sure, my dad gave me this journal, but is it really that important? Is it really worth having to run from Petrov forever? I can’t even finish asking myself the question before I’m certain of the answer. Yes. It is that important. It’s all I have left of my father.
My phone chimes on the bed next to me, but I ignore it. It’s probably Trin again. She’s texted three times in the last hour wanting to know where I am, why I didn’t show to photography club. I’m sad to be missing out on it, but I’ve got bigger things to worry about now.
“Hola, mija. Can I come in?” my mother asks after she steps into the room and knocks on the open door for effect.
“I guess it’s too late to say no, huh?” I shouldn’t take my bad mood out on her. None of this is her fault.
My mother doesn’t even bat an eyelash at my sullen tone. Her lack of reaction makes me feel even guiltier, but I don’t apologize. I do make room for her on the bed, and she sits on the edge, ever the picture of grace and class.
“I’ll be leaving for a few days. Samuel is going with me to make a deal on our items,” she tells me. Translation: Uncle Samuel has a contact interested in the duchy jewels, and they’re going to try to unload the contraband.
“Yeah,” I say, and I’m sure my voice belies my frustration.
She’s quiet for several long minutes. Then she says, “I was younger than you when I met your father.”
I knew that already, but I don’t remind her of that.
“My father…” She trails off and stares toward the ceiling as if searching for the right words. I sit up and focus my attention on her. She’s never talked to me about her parents or her childhood. The only thing I know about Mom’s family is they’re Puerto Rican. But the only extended family I’ve ever known was the Italian side—my father’s side.
“He was not a good man, my father. Not like yours was.” She smiles sadly and reaches out to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “I left home when I was very young. And when I met your father, he was older, and handsome, and smart. And so sweet. We fell in love so quickly.”
“Mom, I know you loved Daddy.”
“Sí, very much. But I need you to understand that it was more than love for him that made me stay. Growing up, chiquita, my life wasn’t like yours. I had very little—few belongings and even less love. Your father, he showed me love, but he also showed me that the world was at my fingertips. His family, they were thieves for generations back. It was like a form of artistic expression for your abuelo before he retired. For the first time in my life, I had a real family who loved me and wanted me to be a part of what they did. And I was a natural. I remember the first heist I went on with him…” She stares up at the ceiling wistfully, likely reliving the moment. Then she shakes her head as if to clear it. “I wanted you to have the world, and I thought this was the only way I could give it to you. But…if I had left, if I had been a better mother…” Her eyes well with tears.
She’s apologizing for raising me to be a thief like her. She’s apologizing for my life, and she thinks she’s a bad mother. My heart cracks as a tear rolls down her cheek, and I scramble over to her, loop my arm through hers, and rest my head on her shoulder. “You are a great mom. The best. I don’t blame you for raising me the way you did, I promise.”
I feel her body shudder, and she releases a soft sigh, heavy with relief. We sit there like that for several moments. Then she kisses my forehead. “When did you get so grown up, hmm?”
It’s a good thing the question is rhetorical, because I wouldn’t have had an answer. Right now, I feel anything but grown up. I feel lost and scared—scared of Petrov, scared of never being able to connect, to really connect, with another person, to never tell them the truth about me. But most of all, I’m sad. I was just starting to feel like a normal life might be within my grasp. And now, I’m just hiding in my room waiting for the next time we have to run away.
“So, you are going back to school next week, sí?”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” I answer honestly.
“Mija, why not?” My mother gets up from the bed and stands facing me with her arms crossed over her chest. “This is what you wanted, no?”
I feel my cheeks redden under her stare, and I drop my gaze to the floor. “Yes, but that was before I knew Petrov wasn’t going to simply forget about us. I was stupid to think we could just leave and he wouldn’t come after us.”
“Mari, Petrov won’t find us here. He has no power here in the U.S. Besides, this is a big city, in an even bigger country. Trying to find us here would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.”
I’m not sure if she believes that or if she’s just saying it for my benefit. She can’t really believe that Petrov won’t find us here if he really wants to…
“You should go back to school. Have the normal life you wanted. The one I should have given you from the start.” She sounds sad, and her expression is blank. I can’t tell if she’s still blaming herself or not.
I don’t want to tell her I have no intentions of going back to school, so instead, I say nothing.
After several long moments, she sighs in resignation and bends to kiss me on my forehead. “Just think about it, mija.” Then she leaves me alone in the room.
…
I’m never fully at ease when my mother is away. When she’s home, it’s easy for me to fool myself into believing I’m tough and brave and comfortable with the world and all its countless dangers. But when she’s away, I feel small; our home—wherever that may be—feels large and vacuous, and I have a tendency to wander through it listlessly. But the feeling is even worse now that I know Petrov is still looking for me. My mother’s been gone only four days and not due to come back for at least two or three more, but with each new day, I become more and more anxious waiting for her return.
When I catch myself peeking out my window and squinting down at the darkest corners of the street below for the third time in an hour, I know it’s time to find a diversion. So I pick up my phone and text Will.
Hey, you busy?
His response is almost immediate. Not even a little. What’s up, flower?
I consider my next question for only a fraction of a second before sending it. Wanna come over?
I’m already pretty certain he’s going to say yes before I get his answer. Be right there.
I don’t know exactly what “right there” means, so I toss my phone onto the coffee table and rush to make myself more presentable. After trading my pink flannel pajama pants and white T-shirt for a pair of black leggings and oversize gray sweater over a black tank top, I head toward the bathroom to freshen up. I’ve just barely finished brushing my teeth when the doorbell rings.
I rush to answer it, but when I get there, I slow my movements and run a self-conscious hand over the flyaway hairs coming loose from my bun. Hopefully the look is more messy-cute than frumpy. I push the thought away and unlock the dead bolt.
“Hey, flower, what’s going on?” Will asks as soon as I open the door. He doesn’t wait to be invited in, just brushes past me and barely waits for me to shut the door before heading to the living room. “Is your mom here?”
I shake my head, but his back is to me. “No, she’s…out of town.” Not a
lie, I remind myself. I don’t need to tell him that she’s gone to try to unload our latest pilfered treasures to the highest bidder.
He doesn’t wait to be asked to sit before making himself comfortable on the sofa. “So, what should we do? Wanna stay in or go out? We could go see a movie or something.”
Right now, leaving this apartment sounds like the least desirable idea I’ve ever heard. I have zero desire to go traipsing around the city in the cold rain. “I’d rather just stay in.”
Will raises his gaze to search my face for the briefest of moments. Then he winks at me. “Sure, flower. We can stay in.” He pats the cushion next to him.
I don’t know what he thinks I meant by stay in, but I’m not entirely sure we’re on the same page. I join him on the couch, grabbing the remote from the coffee table and flipping on the TV as I sit. “We could watch a movie here.”
“Cool.” He raises his arm so it rests on the cushion behind my shoulders but doesn’t actually touch me.
“What kind of movies do you like?” I ask as I flip through the menu for something I haven’t seen.
“I’m not picky.” His voice is soft and silky, and at the same time he speaks, I feel the soft weight of his fingers, gentle on my shoulder. It’s like his signature move or something, I guess.
I do my best to ignore his hand on my arm and focus on picking a movie, but I can’t drag my attention away from him, from the way his hand keeps softly brushing the sensitive skin of my neck. His fingers are cold, but the sensation against my warm skin is nice.
We do eventually pick a movie, or he does. I don’t care what we watch; it’s going to be impossible for me to pay attention to it anyway with Will so close. He seems involved in the story line for the next hundred or so minutes, but we might as well have been watching a blank screen for all the attention I pay.